Candid
by Pandastacia
Summary: They've never noticed just how much they affect each other. "I don't want to leave anyone behind." She doesn't mention names; he can't help but wonder if she will miss him.


title: Candid  
chapter title: flip the track over  
progress: (1/?)  
notes: I do not own Naruto (sad!). & I do not own "Konstantine" (song by Something Corporate, which I highly recommend), whose lines I have borrowed in pieces. & I do not own Twilight, something that I'm actually pretty happy about. If you take offense, you may debate with me over the quality of Twilight.

* * *

"I have no choice."

Ominous words. They feel tinged with evil, even when he tries to tell himself to stop being stupid: they are all of four words and he should wait for her to finish her thought.

But once she starts talking, he wants to ask -yell_scream_shout- for her to shutupshutup_shutup_.

"I got accepted into Suna. I've always wanted to study there. Expensive, I know, but it _is_ a really good university and has one of the best pre-med programs out there. Of course, it would have been nice to stay here and go to Tokyo, so I won't have to…" Her voice shakes, but she forces herself to continue. "I don't want to leave anyone behind." She doesn't mention names; he can't help but wonder if she will miss _him_.

The summer air seems to become winter as ice floods through his veins.

"Thank you for… Well, everything, really." Bobbing her head in a small bow makes her bangs to fall out of her hairclip, covering her eyes.

The way she talks is abrupt, like she's trying to run the words together so they mean something less than destruction, something more like confusion. Suddenly the world feels like it is tilting and soon everything will be on its head, a place- dimension, really- where confusion is spelled with a "k" and nothing makes sense.

He wishes for the first time that everything is nonsensical and that the words that are coming out of her lips (lips and everything that is a part of her that he's had dreams about on every single bad day for too many years in a row) would stop and-.

Thinking about it all hurts more than he can remember or want. Seeking a distraction, he gazes over her head into the foggy distance and thinks about everything he would change if could.

He wishes that his father will stop giving him that look that said, _yesyesyes you're getting there but you're not there yet so keep going._ He wishes his father will give Sasuke some of that attention so his brother will stop trying so damn hard to be something he isn't. He wishes he could give in to the storm boiling below the surface and throw something at the wall.

But this habit of quietness and familial curse of turning every emotion inward has become too inbred. There is no way for the young man to give her what she wanted. He can see the way his eyes roam over his face, searching almost _eagerly_ for a sign that her words affect him.

His thoughts are in knots; his body refuses to breathe. There is that feeling in his gut reminiscent of the time Shisui had made him play goalie and knocked all of the air out of his body with a energetic kick.

He feels like he will never be able to breathe again.

All he could manage was a cold congratulations and all she had to offer was a weak smile.

The first time Uchiha Itachi consciously realizes that Haruno Sakura means something more to him than his protégée is when she is almost gone.

* * *

...

:

:

* * *

Sakura bites her tongue as she sits down at the breakfast table after using the latte machine for the first time. The atmosphere is made up of silent and tense words, as if she just sat in the middle of a funeral halfway through the eulogy. It does not help that Itachi does not look up from the front page of his newspaper to look at her.

Why did they both have to be early risers? She curses Sasuke for sleeping in every Saturday, leaving her alone to deal with a cold ex-friend, ex teacher, ex everything.

Silence like this is so uncomfortable, crushing them both in a terrible grip.

"Nice day out, huh?"

Before, perhaps he would have looked up from the local section and given her an amused glance as she looked out the window to find a world filled with nothing but smothering fog, but now… He does not bother to even look up, just sipping from his usual latte.

"I can't believe I'm leaving in three weeks," she mumbles as she grabs the comics and reads them.

There's no reaction from across the table.

She can't read "For Better or For Worse" through the tears brimming in his eyes. After all of the years they've been teacher and pupil, friends, and housemates, she thinks she's deceived herself into thinking that she mattered to him. That she is more to him than a casual acquaintance.

They'd been through a lot together- a flat on the way to the library and being stranded in the middle of nowhere with no cellular service for hours; the day in front of the movie theater waiting for the latest Twilight movie together because Sasuke and Naruto refused and she couldn't go alone; forcing Kisame to go to the aquarium with the two of them so he could get them in behind the scenes…

Grabbing her vanilla latte, Sakura walks away, unable to take the almost-hostility he gives off after years of comfortable affable conversation.

She doesn't notice the way his hands have gripped the newspaper till they were wrinkled and illegible before throwing it into the trash and stalking to his father's studio where nothing reminds him of her.

He doesn't notice that she's forgone her favorite hot chocolate for one of the only things that she might be able to bring with her to remember him.

:::

_Tbc..._

_

* * *

_So this is going to be rather short- maybe 5 to 10 parts, I think.

It's all planned out in my head.

& I want to get this all done by high school graduation in n weeks (June 10th).  
I'll need all the support I can get to finish something...

---sonya!


End file.
